“You’ll get killed.” I racked my brain for any detail I could use to sway her, any warning. The truth seemed the best way to go. “He’s trying to become a god. I admit, I don’t know the guy real well, but with a name like Soul Eater, I don’t want him having cosmic power. Fledgling or not, you have to admit, if he manages to go through with this, everyone is fucked.”

“It will be the end of the human race and eventually the vampire race, blah blah blah.” She sighed, making a jabbering duck mouth with one hand as she rang a silver bell with the other. “He’s talked about doing something like this for years. Worked on it a bit with his son, actually. But he’s never going to pull it off.”

“Oh, yeah?” I snapped. “Guess who’s been raised from the dead?”

To her credit, her surprise didn’t show as much as it could have. She ground out her cigarette with a muffled curse. After a long moment squinting at me with barely veiled resentment, she conceded defeat. “I love Jacob with all my heart. But loving isn’t the same as trusting, by a long shot. What do you need from me to get your part of this done?”

“I don’t have any connections here. I need a road map, at least. And old newspapers, if you have them.” Where the Fangs went, chaos followed. There was no chance a sleepy area like Death Valley was going to miss marauding hordes of vampires. Something was going to end up in print.

With a long-suffering sigh, she lifted the silver bell that rested at her right hand and rang it again. The butler appeared and bent stiffly in deference to his mistress. March handed off the saucer she’d turned into an ashtray, then massaged the bridge of her nose with her fingers. “Have you taken the recycling to be done?”

Recycling? At least, March had an environmental conscience, if no other kind.

Eyeing me with distaste, the servant cleared his throat. “I believe that takes place every other Thursday.”

“Load the newspapers in the back of her van. Just the local ones.” She turned to me again and arched a brow. “Unless you think scouring the New York Times would help?”

“Was there anything out of the ordinary in them? Anything at all you can remember that seemed…more sensational than usual?” Of course, I supposed sensational was relative to a man who worked in a vampire whorehouse.

“I am sorry, miss, I do not read them.” Turning back to March, he asked, “Will that be all, ma’am?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”

With another stiff bow, he left us.

“Sorry I couldn’t be of more help. We’ll make sure you get the proper supplies for your trip.” She grinned, looking pleased with herself.